"Four years ago when I came to
China for the
first time, I was deeply impressed by how wonderful we were here
and we had everything", said J. Niguna, a Russian expert who is now
working as an article polisher for a media in Beijing.
"Now I'm still intrigued by the enthusiasm of the rank and file,
I hope to work longer in China", she said.
Along with the deepening of the opening up and reforms, China
sees a surging demand for talents of various kinds, including
foreign experts. According to statistics from the State
Administration of Foreign Experts Affairs, China's introduction of
foreign brains only stood at 500 to 600 persons each year in the
lately 1970s; which increased to more than 60,000 by the 1990s.
After the WTO accession, the number of introduced foreign talents
soared to 220,000 persons annually, coming from 80-strong countries
as compared to a dozen in earlier days; if we count in talents from
Hong Kong, Macao and Taiwan, the total scale is nearing 450,000
person times.
After China joined the WTO, the manufacturing industry became a
key field in ushering in foreign brains, said Wan Xueyuan, director
of the State Administration of Foreign Experts Affairs, and the
imbalance of foreign talents between manufacturing and services
sectors will be reversed when service professionals come in large
quantities. Currently China's manufacturing industry is the biggest
home to foreign experts, about 200,000 in number.
China is becoming a big country in introducing foreign brains,
added Wan, and her real attraction lies in her long history,
brilliant culture and her economic development that is changing
with every passing day.
Originally worked at the Far East research institute of Russia's
academy of sciences, Niguna is a fluent Chinese speaker and a lover
of contemporary Chinese literature. "I like China's feminine
literature. Chi Li and Zhang Jie are among my favorite writers. It
is a pity that the impression on Chinese literature of most of the
Russian still stays on works of the 1960s and 70s. So I tried to
translate some excellent works of today to let more Russians
understand Chinese literature in contemporary times". Her latest
translation is Eve in the Last Days.
Niguna's colleague Wycherley came to work in Beijing from New
Zealand on April 28, during the SARS scare. "It is by chance that I
came to China when a friend introduced me a job here" he said, "for
most New Zealanders, China is still a mysterious country. Now I
have been in China for seven months, and I feel this is a country
with the fastest changing paces in the world. I love traveling, I
hope I can work longer here so I can finish my traveling plan in
China, Asia and Russia".
Zha Tianmu, a Canadian expert has worked in China for eight
years. Given himself a Chinese name, he is responsible for a
poverty alleviation program between China and the Netherlands. Many
years of work deep in China's rural areas has given him a keen
understanding, "the major task for aiding the poor is to raise
peasants' education and self-development capability". He married a
girl from Qinghai and enjoys his life in China.
Though foreign experts are satisfied with their lives in China,
problems exist in the nation's introduction of foreigners, Wan
pointed out. For example, most of them were ushered in via
government channels with the introduction of foreign organizations
and only a few are through market channels. Most of them came for
short-term service and few are long-term employed; their pay lags
far behind the standards in international markets.
As international competitions become severer, both developed and
developing countries take care of protecting their domestic talent
markets when introducing foreign brains and try to combine the two
closely together. It needs thorough study on how to merge with
international markets, which sector needs foreigners and which
needn't, as well as how to combine international and domestic
markets together, Wan noted.
(People's Daily December 21, 2003)